In June, I was captivated for the first time by the paintings and life story of Grant Wood because of a novel that I picked up at the library. His paintings were idealized versions of his Iowa Landscape, and during the early summer, I often drove around wondering what he would have thought about Wisconsin.
Wood's place in art history places him as a regionalist, and the second most well-known regionalist is John Steuart Curry. Curry received an art residency at the University of Wisconsin and worked and painted there until his death.
Over the summer, I saw Wood's masterpiece at the Art Institute, and also viewed Curry's murals in Madison.
I was in the height of my fascination with Wood's paintings and life when I completed this landscape. The title comes from a passage in the book that describes the honest quality of the working people and lands of the rural Midwest.
